Halloween: Part Three

Happening somewhere right now…

Previously on Podge Midge and Sometimes Smidge: Evil witches Martha, Gloria, and Katherine were busy making their traditional Halloween youth potion. Just as Katherine was about to add their final ingredient, fairy sisters Midge and Smidge, Katherine’s ex-boyfriend Paul arrives. Paul, has recently turned good. Podge the toad sits on his shoulder.

“Paul!” says Katherine. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” says Paul. “One moment we’re having a gorgeous holiday in Portugal, then the next thing, you’re gone.”

“Paul, I…” says Katherine.

“I know. Going good is scary,” says Paul, with a knowing looking in his eye. “Being bad is all we’ve ever known!”

“What am I supposed to do? Abandon my friends? Leave my family? Grow OLD?” asks Katherine, looking at the bubbling cauldron of youth potion.

“You could establish healthy boundaries with your loved ones,” suggests Midge, still dangling from Katherine’s fingers above the cauldron.

“And you could still visit them at the holidays,” says Smidge, her feet growing warm above the boiling pot.

“And what about us?” says Gloria, with a toothless frown.

“Are you leaving the coven forever?” asks Martha, whistling through her single tooth.

But Katherine’s gaze remains on Paul. She looks at his bright clothing and his smooth forehead, which has somehow become even more youthful despite his new diet that does not include youth potion.

Finally she looks to Martha and Gloria, her coven sisters for almost three hundred years. Her memory floods with a lifetime of shared birthdays, funerals, gossip, boiling children, killing ogres, murdering virgins, but most of all, friendship. Martha offers her a toothless smile before Katherine turns to the ridiculously gorgeous Paul. He’s glowing.

“Paul, Portugal was lovely, but I’m staying bad,” says Katherine, before releasing an ear piercing cackle. Gloria and Martha jump for joy, joining in with wild yelps.

Katherine releases her grip, allowing the fairies to fall and meet their death in the searing youth potion.

“No!” screams Paul, having recently come to appreciate the fairy race.

But before the fairies’ toes can swipe the surface, Podge jumps the highest he has ever jumped. Including the time he wore that compression suit.

He jumps so high over the cauldron that he catches Midge and Smidge on his back, bringing them safely to the other side.

“No!” shrieks Katherine who is aging rapidly, likely due to her commitment to evil.

“Yes, Podge the toad!” says Paul who, alongside the fairy race, now cares deeply for all woodland creatures. He hexes the witches, freezing them in place, just long enough for Podge, Midge, and Smidge to escape out the hut’s door.

On their way home, Podge accepts his well-deserved praises.

“Well done, Podge!” says Smidge. “How did you do it?”

“It’s Wednesday. If Katherine was right, I knew Paul would be at the animal shelter. I’m an animal so I thought he would help me.” says Podge.

“I never doubted my trusted associate,” says Midge.

“Anyway,” says Podge, getting bashful, “how long until your wings grow back?”

“Oh, they won’t grow back,” says Smidge.

“We’ll have to see a good witch about replacing them,” says Midge.

“Are there many good witches?” asks Podge.

“Not really,” says Smidge. “Most of them stay bad forever. It’s boring being good.”

“Didn’t you find Paul kind of dull?” asks Midge.

“Very,” says Smidge.

“I thought he was a nice guy,” says Podge, who had had a good chat with him on the way to save the fairies.

“I’m sure he is,” says Smidge.

Now that Podge thinks about it, Paul did go on a bit about the emaciated kitten he nursed back to health.